After trekking the entire Camino de Santiago in 2013 (SJPDP to Finisterre), the Mapless Pilgrim returns to quasi-document 17 days trekking the final 300-miles...while continuing to embrace the maplessness of life.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

The Post With No Name

Hello my dear digital travelers!

I titled this post this way because so many things happened today that merited totally different themes to run with. So instead I'll give you a snippet of most everything.

First up: Current Physical Condition: slowly deteriorating, I think. Though my mind and heart are strong, I'm fighting a relatively minor -but still very painful- bought with blisters. Nursing a small one on my left heel has given way to a very large and painful one on the bottom of each of my little toes. The little toe is so anatomically bizarre on just about everyone, and 4 days of steep ascents and descents finally gave out. So I'm ok, but what should have been a speedy afternoon was made very long and I'm nervous about tomorrow.

It's sort of funny bc everyone has some ailment and its just like my grandmother says old people are: "the conversation is always about their latest ailment and how mine tops yours". Haha.

My Chapstick Angel: we're only on day 4 but everyone already has at least one story of the Camino "providing". The saying is that the Camino provides, and regardless of how you interpret it, it gives you goosebumps when it happens.

For the last day or so I've been fighting a touch of sun and windburn. Nothing terrible until this morning when my lips began bleeding and were hurting quite badly as I climbed The Hill of Forgiveness. About half way down the other side- with my 2 new blisters in tow- I plopped down for lunch at a little restaurant that was like an oasis in the desert. I realized that there were some English speakers sitting around including a couple from Vermont. So out of exhaustion I asked if anyone had seen Chapstick at any stores they'd been to bc I was now in the market but unsure I'd seen any. And the woman looked at me kind of surprised and said, "here" pulling a brand new tube of Carmex from her bag. "My husband MADE me bring this for no real reason. I insisted that I not bring it, I haven't needed it and I don't think I will but my husband said I just HAD to bring it." <Que the goosebumps> He even chimed in "it has SPF in it, so it'll help whichever it is -wind or sun" and I hadn't explained my ailment at all.

So there the woman from Vermont whose husband forced her to haul a tube of Carmex across an ocean and God-knows how many miles once she got there, turned over her tube of Carmex in the Pyrenees Mountains to a girl from Boston, badly in need of just such a thing. The Camino provides.

To be honest I'm falling asleep as I write this so I better close. More tomorrow. Beunas noches.

2 comments:

Take care of your feet. Every time you stop for a break, take your boots and socks off, air out your feet. Would something like vaseline help with the blisters? I don't know what's available on the Camino, but if you can't get something like "BodyGlide", but I'm sure you could get vaseline. As you walk your feet are swelling, if possible soak them in cold/cool water to help reduce the swelling and reducing the chance of blisters. At some point, you'll know when, take a day off to give time for your feet and body to recover.